People will start to question our grasp of reality, or think we are being deliberately obtuse.
One wonders why some previous critics and readers were so obtuse!
Only the hopelessly naïve or willfully obtuse can believe that these were the real motives for the war.
Now the position of this line, as found by Kobold, actually is a (properly weighted) mean between the corresponding lines of symmetry of the two drifts, but naturally it lies in the acute angle between them, whereas the line of the solar motion is also a weighted mean between the two lines of drift, but lies in the obtuse angle between them.
The first-named expounds the views of the author; the second is an eager and intelligent listener; the third represents a well-meaning but obtuse Peripatetic, whom the others treat at times with undisguised contempt.